Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman

I suspected, however, that I wasn't homesick for anything I would find at home when I returned. The longing was for what I wouldn't find: the past and all the people and places there were lost to me.

And who's to say that just because something lasts only a short time, it has little value?

It is one of the strongest bonds, I think, that can spring up between people: sharing a passion for certain books and their authors.

Women would be better off when they no longer needed men more than they needed their own independent identities...How long a time it took me after my divorce to understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely.

His presence made me feel self-concious: of my appearance, of the way I was sitting, of my movements and gestures...It was the behavior of a woman reacting to a man who attracts her.

Freedom has its dangers as well as its joys. And the sooner we learn to get up after a fall, the better off we'll be.

It used to surprise me, the intensity with which I still remembered these distant memories. But when I entered my fifties...I understood their enduring clarity....In the end, what adds up to a life is nothing more than the accumulation of small daily moments.

What if more of life could be like that? Like the last slow dance, where, to echo T.S. Eliot, a lifetime burns in every moment.

I'm a woman in search on an adventure

In many ways I was an independent woman. For years I'd made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow.

As I set out each day, I felt like a young child again. One who hadn't yet learned the rules of manmade time; the rules of clocks and calendars, of weekdays and weekends. Except the primitive markers of day and night, time lay ahead of me in a continuous, undefined mass.

What adds up to a life is nothing more than the accumulation of small daily moments.

Maybe it was I who needed to learn how to be quiet instead of cluttering the moment with too many words.

I had forgotten how wonderful it is to stand on a bridge and catch the scent of rain in the air. I had forgotten how much I need to be a part of water, wind, sky.

At first the lives of women frightened me. They seemed so fragile, so dependent on fathers and husbands and brothers and lovers. Gradually, though, I noticed how supple their lives were beneath the surface. I saw, too, that sooner or later, by choice or by chance most women faced the task of adapting to a future on their own. When at my most optimistic, I thought of it as independence, in darker moods, as survival. Either way, women had to do it.

Life is like that I thought, as I turned the corner to my building. Freedom has its danger as well as its joys. And the sooner we learn to get up after a fall, the better off will be.

I suppose that, after the passion of love, water rights have caused more trouble than anything else to the human species.

How to stop rushing from place to place, always looking ahead to the next thing while the moment in front of me slipped away unnoticed.

By then I'd knocked around enough to know that, in the end, what adds up to a life is nothing more than the accumulation of small daily moments.

And like any group thrown together in a strange situation, we developed the sort of we're-in-this-together, for-better-or-for-worse camaraderie that I found appealingly familiar. It was something I missed, the sense of sharing those small, daily experiences that, as far as I can tell, are really what life boils down to.

Things happen, I thought, and we respond. That's what it all comes down to. To believe anything else, as far as I could tell, was simply an illusion.

Going back to school is like going back in time. Immediately, for better or for worse, you must give up a little piece of your autonomy in order to become part of the group. And every group, of course, has its hierarchies and rules- spoken and unspoken. It is like learning to live once again in a family- which, of course, is the setting where all learning begins.

The fun-seekers, I noted, were spontaneous and flexible. They approached each day and each situation with a willingness to ride whatever wave came along, just for the experience of it. The complainers, on the other hand, would only catch a wave if it was exactly to their liking. Anything else drew loud protestations about how it was not what they expected.

The sun came out. It filtered down through the leaves, creating a playful pattern of light and shade that danced before my eyes. The air smelled of lilies of the valley. As I walked beneath the canopy of trees, wrapped in the delicate fragrance, caution fell away. It didn't matter that I had no idea which street led to the place de Tertre or to my Métro stop. Destination no longer ruled. My only map was that of free association: I would follow each street only as long as it interested me and then, on a whim, choose a new direction.

..., looking at the silent buildings, each one with a story to tell.

After all, the word “travel” comes from the Latin “trepalium.” Which, loosely translated, means “instrument of torture.

The writer ended with a line from Eudora Welty: “All serious daring starts from within.

What is the one emotion that you would like to feel for the rest of your life?

Most of us, I suppose, have had at one time or another the impulse to leave behind our daily routines and responsibilities and seek out, temporarily, a new life.

I guess I'm too selfish to travel well with other people," I told Anne later.